New Cases of Armed Citizens Stopping Criminals in February

Last month, we documented some extraordinary examples from
January of armed citizens relying on their Second Amendment rights to protect
themselves and others.

We pointed out that these were average, everyday Americans
who were just going about their lives. They did not go looking for evil but
were nonetheless prepared to deal with the evil that found them.

February has produced even more evidence that the
fundamental right to keep and bear arms is not an anachronism that no longer
deserves constitutional protection, but a vital tool safeguarding individual
liberty.

Studies routinely
indicate that every year, Americans use their firearms in defense of themselves
or others between 500,000 and 2 million times. Very few of these defensive gun
uses receive national publicity — if they receive publicity at all.

Below, we’ve highlighted just a handful of the many times
during the month of February that law-abiding Americans demonstrated the
importance of the Second Amendment.

Feb.
2: A restaurant
owner in Akron, Ohio, scared off a masked man who attempted to
rob him with a knife. The man fled, and police believe he successfully
robbed a different restaurant just hours later.

Feb.
5: A Nashville, Tennessee, woman was attacked from behind by a would-be
purse thief, who proceeded to repeatedly slam the woman’s head into a
wall when she resisted him. The woman’s husband heard her cries for help
and came to her defense, firing his gun at the thief and causing him to
flee.

Feb. 9: When three armed men attempted to rob a Little Caesars restaurant in North Fort Myers, Florida, a patron inside pulled his own firearm to defend other customers. One suspect was shot and the other two fled.

Feb. 13: Sullivan County, Tennessee, Sheriff Jeff Cassidy praised the actions of a concealed carry permit holder who ended a deadly domestic violence incident at a dentist’s office. The armed citizen shot and detained an active shooter who killed his wife and may have planned to harm others in the office.

Feb.
14: An Evans, Georgia, mother shot and killed her boyfriend after he
began violently
assaulting the woman’s 15-year-old son during an argument.

Feb.
16: Two masked assailants attempted
to rob 35-year-old Antonio Santiago in Allentown, Pennsylvania,
pepper spraying his face and “pistol whipping” him with a BB gun that
appeared to be real. In an act of self-defense, Santiago grabbed his own
handgun and fired at his attackers, killing one of them. Two other
suspects fled, but were eventually arrested and tied to two other recent
crimes in the area.

Feb. 17:
An armed
good Samaritan in Daytona Beach, Florida, intervened and fired a
shot to stop a knife-wielding man, who had already stabbed someone, from
stabbing other people outside a convenience store.

Feb.
20: A 79-year-old Commerce, Georgia, homeowner called 911 to report a
burglary in progress after she heard someone breaking into her home. The
burglar ignored
her threats and came in through an upstairs window before police
could arrive. The homeowner shot at the burglar, who was so scared that he
hid in a closet until the police arrived.

Feb.
24: Three armed men ambushed a Houston, Texas, couple who were walking
out of their apartment complex, forcing them back inside to rob them. The
boyfriend retrieved
his own firearm from within the apartment and exchanged fire with
the three men, injuring one of them.

Feb.
26: The Mobile County, Alabama, Sheriff’s Office posted
a Facebook video showing an armed local homeowner’s recent
encounter with two would-be burglars. The burglars attempted to enter the
occupied home in broad daylight, and were only deterred when the homeowner
fired her handgun at them.

Feb.
27: A group of teenage thieves entered
a pawn shop in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and tried to flee with
two guns they grabbed from behind the counter. Armed store clerks chased
the teens and held them at gunpoint until the police could arrive,
preventing the future unlawful use of those stolen firearms. Police
believe these teens are responsible for other gun thefts and may be able
to take other illegally possessed guns off the streets as a result of
these clerks’ actions.

Feb.
28: Two men helped
rescue a woman from a would-be kidnapper in Natchitoches Parish,
Louisiana, after seeing her struggle to escape on the side of the road.
After the two men stopped their car, one of them pulled out his handgun,
prompting the suspect to flee. He was later apprehended and confessed to
kidnapping the woman.

These individuals were all law-abiding citizens whose lives
and livelihoods depended upon their ability to exercise their natural right of
self-defense. Without a robustly protected right to keep and bear arms, the
Americans in the cases above would have been left to the mercy of criminals who
don’t much care for the rights of others.

Despite this reality, gun control activists and lawmakers
have spent the last month pushing legislation that would severely hamper the
ability of law-abiding Americans to defend themselves and others.

They have proposed effectively stripping young adults of
their Second Amendment rights by raising the legal age for firearm purchases.
Apparently, while law-abiding 18- to 20-year-olds are mature enough to vote,
serve on juries, and be drafted into the military, they can’t be trusted to
legally purchase a handgun with which to defend themselves and their families.

The bill for universal background checks, which recently
passed through the House of Representatives, would compound this problem
by depriving
young adults of the ability to receive firearms via private transfers.

Gun control advocates have introduced bills that would limit
magazine capacity for privately-owned firearms and that would prohibit future
civilian purchases of semi-automatic rifles that serve as some of the most
effective guns for home defense.

The irony is that, while civilians would be stripped of the
right to immediately defend their lives and property with these guns, the law
enforcement officers who respond—perhaps too late—to calls for help
overwhelmingly choose those same firearms precisely because they are the most
effective.

All of these proposals would significantly burden the
exercise of a constitutional right that, as the data from February shows, is
commonly used by average Americans to enforce their inalienable rights to life,
liberty, and property.

We don’t make law-abiding citizens safer by disarming them
or making them less capable of fighting back against criminals. We only make
them easier targets.